ComEd’s grid upgrades reduce outages in Chicago area

Upgrades to the power grid helped Commonwealth Edison’s Chicago area customers stay warm and avoid outages this winter.

ComEd’s smart grid improvements, including the installation of “smart switches” that reroute power around trouble spots, helped avoid more than 280,000 customer interruptions this winter season, which has been one of the coldest in recent history.

“When we began our grid modernization work in 2012, we made a promise to bring improved reliability to our customers,” ComEd CEO Joe Dominguez said. “We kept that promise, setting reliability records while keeping energy bills flat. Our customers have seen the benefits this winter as we continue to bring more improvements to the system.”

ComEd’s grid upgrades were precipitated by the passage of the Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act by the Illinois General Assembly in 2012. Since then, power outages have been reduced by 45 percent, on average. That translates to 11 million fewer customer suffering interruptions. Additionally, the frequency of outages has been reduced by nearly 60 percent since 2012 in Chicago. Further, over the last 10 years, the average ComEd residential customer has seen no increase in their bill. In June 2008, the average monthly bill was about $85 and in January 2019 the average bill was approximately $83.

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Commonwealth Edison is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation. ComEd provides service to approximately 4 million customers across northern Illinois.